We still have a game remaining but it's never too early to start looking to post season awards.  The EE-ES-PEE-EN blogger assigned to the Big Ten is giving his first draft of All-Big Ten first and second teams.  This is highly unofficial and doesn't mean anything except look how far we have come.  Adam's list includes...

First Team

WR-Eric Decker
DL - Willie VanDeSteeg
CB-Traye Simmons

Second Team

QB-Adam Weber
CB-Marcus Sherels

In case you didn't notice that is three players on first or second team defense!  Decker is a given, and Weber has a great shot at second team.  But two players on the first team defense?  And a walk-on receiver turned corner who is second team All-Big Ten as a junior?  Incredible.

There is a great chance that Simmons and Sherels will not sniff first or second team, but the fact that someone who's sole job has been to intently watch Big Ten football has determined that at the very least these guys are worthy of consideration says a lot about how far this defense has come. 

Thoughts?  Anybody else belong in the conversation?

• This was a week ago but the Denver Post did a story on Brewster.  His ties to some former coaching greats like Mack Brown, Marty Schottenheimer (who would be a great replacement for Childress by the way) and Mike Shanahan have given him a pretty extensive network of people to go to.
  

  Brewsters' three greatest mentors have been Texas coach Mack Brown, whom he assisted at North Carolina and Texas; Marty Schottenheimer, whom he assisted at the San Diego Chargers; and Shanahan.

  Shanahan taught Brewster everything from how to dissect film to the atmosphere you create. I don't see much Shanahan in Brewster. Shanahan is corporate and calculating; Brewster is fire and brimstone. Talk to Brewster for 10 minutes and suddenly you want to winterCreate Story: SB Nation: The Daily Gopher in International Falls.

  It is way too early to know much about Brewster other than he is passionate and a very good recruiter.  If he truly picked up things from the guys listed above he also stands a chance to be a very good football coach.
• The Star Trib's Rachel Blount has done a really good article on the Iowa / Minnesota rivalry.  The story behind Floyd of Rosedale is intriguing and the animosity between the two fan bases is certainly different today than it was in mid-30s. 
  
• On what I believe was the first play of the fourth quarter, Willie VanDeSteeg set a school record for career tackles for loss.  After a very disappoining junior season it is nice to see WVDS bounce back and have a genuinely strong senior season.